Chapter XII: The Arrow

Slowly, silently, two canoes glided along the still, dark water of a gloomy creek over-arched by the interlaced limbs of lofty trees.

The first, propelled by the slow-dipping blades of two Brazilian bushmen, seemed to be seeking something; for it nosed along with frequent pauses of the paddles, during which it drifted almost to a stop while its crew searched the solemn jungle depths reaching away from the right-hand shore. The second, carrying three bronzed and bearded men of another continent, was only trailing the leader. It moved and paused like the first, but the recurrent scrutiny of the farther gloom by its paddlers was that of men who saw only a meaningless, monotonous bulk of buttresses and trunks and tangle of looping lianas. In this dimness and bewildering chaos the trio might as well have been blind. The eyes of the tiny fleet were in the first boat.

The progress of the dugouts was almost stealthy. Not a paddle thumped or splashed, not a voice spoke. They moved with the alert caution born not of fear, but of wary readiness for any sudden event--like prowling jungle creatures which, themselves seeking quarry, must be ever on guard lest they become the hunted instead of the hunters.

For the past two days they had moved thus. The last fresh meat had been shot miles down the river, where a well-placed bullet from the rifle of McKay had downed a fat swamp deer. Since that day not a gun had been fired. The rations now were tough jerked beef and monkey meat, slabs of salt pirarucu fish, and farinha, varied by tinned delicacies from the stores of the Americans. Henceforth gunfire was taboo unless it should become necessary in self-defense.

At length the fore canoe halted with an abruptness that told of back strokes of the blades hidden under water. McKay, bowman of the trailing craft, also backed water, while his mates held their paddles rigid. The two boats drifted together.

“This is the place,” Lourenço said, speaking low.

The Americans, scanning the shore, saw nothing to differentiate the spot from the rest of the wilderness growth. Yet Lourenço’s tone was sure. Pedro’s face also showed recognition of his surroundings. With no apparent motion of the paddles--though the wrists of the paddlers moved almost imperceptibly--the canoe of the bushmen floated to the bank. They picked up their rifles, twitched their bow up on land, and turned their faces to the forest.

“Stay here,” was Pedro’s subdued command, “until you hear the bird-call which we taught you down the river.”

He and Lourenço faded into the dimness and were gone.

“Beats me how them guys find their way ‘round,” muttered Tim. “I could land here twenty times hand-runnin’, but if I went away and then come back I’d never know the place.”

“It’s all in the feel of it,” was McKay’s low-toned explanation. “They find places and travel the bush as an Indian does--by a sixth sense. Take them to New York City, guide them around, then turn them loose--and they’d be hopelessly lost in ten minutes.”

The others nodded agreement and sat watching. In the shadows no creature moved. Afar off some bird cried mournfully like a lost soul condemned to wander forever alone in the grim green solitudes. No other sound came to the listeners save the ever-present hum of the big forest mosquitoes, to which they now had become indifferent. For all they could see or hear of their two guides, they might as well have been alone. Yet they knew the Brazilians were not far away, threading the maze with sure step and scouting hawk-eyed for any sign of danger.

At length a long soft whistle sounded in the bush ahead. Any Indian hunter hearing that sound would straightway have begun scanning the high branches, for the liquid call was that of the mutum, or curassow turkey. But the waiting trio knew it for Pedro’s signal that all was clear. At once they slid their canoe to shore, lifted its bow to a firm grip on the clay, and, after plumbing the shadows, quietly advanced in squad column.

A few steps, and they halted suddenly and whirled. A voice had spoken just behind them. There, squatting leisurely between the root buttresses of a huge tree, Lourenço looked up at them in amusement. They had passed within rifle length of him without seeing him.

“Of what use are your eyes, comrades?” he chaffed. “In the bush one should see in all directions at once. You were looking at that patch of sunlight just ahead, yes? But danger lurks in the shadows, not in the glaring light.”

Without awaiting an answer, he arose and took the lead. At the edge of the small sunlit space beyond he halted.

“You were heading for the right place,” he added then. “Look around. Do you see anything?”

Swiftly they scrutinized the gap left by the fall of a great tree whose gigantic trunk had bludgeoned weaker trees away in its crushing descent. Seeing nothing unusual, they then peered around them. Tim suddenly snapped up his rifle.

“Holler tree there--and a man in it! Hey! come out o’ there!”

“Your eyes improve,” Lourenço complimented. “But the man is Pedro.”

Tim lowered the gun as Pedro, grinning, came out of his concealment.

“That is the tree of the Raposa,” Lourenço went on. “The lightning flashing in from above showed us the man. But now, senhores, I think we must tramp the bush for some time before we find that Raposa again. There is no trace of him here.”

“Hm!” said Knowlton. Striding to the hollow tree, he peered about inside it. The cavity was almost big enough to sling a hammock in, but it was empty of any indication of habitation, human or otherwise. A temporary refuge--that was all.

“No sign anywhere around here, eh?” queried McKay.

“We have found none. We shall look farther, but I have small hope. If you senhores will make the camp this time we shall start at once and stay out until dark. Build no fire until we return. And if you hear the call of the mutum, pay no attention to it; we may use it to locate each other if we separate, and also perhaps as a decoy. Any wild man, red or white, hearing that call would seek the bird making it, for a fine fat mutum is well worth killing. Keep quiet and be on guard.”

“Right. Go ahead.”

The bushmen turned at once and stole away. The others returned to the canoes, transported the necessary duffle to the base of the hollow tree, made camp with a few poles, and squatted against the trunk to smoke, watch, and wait. Several times they heard mutum calls receding in the distance. Then came silence.

The sun-thrown shadows in the gap crawled steadily eastward. Knowlton tested the feed of his automatic, which, since its balkiness in the fight with the Peruvians, he had kept carefully oiled and free from the slightest speck of rust. Tim arose at intervals and paced up and down in sentry go, eyes and ears alert--a useless activity, but one which provided an outlet for his restless energy. McKay let his gaze rove over the small area visible from their post, studying the contours of the towering trunks, the prone giant whose fall had opened the hole in the leafy roof, the parasitical vines twined about other trees, the thin, outflung buttresses supporting the mighty columns--all familiar sights to him, but the only things to occupy his vision. So limned on his brain did the scene become that after a time he could close his eyes and see it in every important detail.

It might have been two hours after Pedro and Lourenço had departed--the shadows had grown much longer--when over McKay stole the feeling that he was being watched. He glanced at his companions and found that neither of them was looking at him. Knowlton, sitting with hands clasped around updrawn knees, was dozing. Tim, though wide awake, was staring absently at a fungus. The captain’s eyes searched the short vistas all about, spying nothing new. Still the feeling persisted. Then all at once his roaming gaze stopped, became fixed on a point some forty feet away.

There rose a rough-barked red-brown tree, and from it, near the ground, projected a blackish bole. McKay was very sure the protuberance had not been there before. He had stared steadily at that tree more than once, and its shape was quite clear in his mind. Was that bump an insensate wood growth now revealed for the first time by the changing sun slant, or--

For minutes he watched it. It did not move. Then Tim, restless again, rose directly in McKay’s line of sight, yawned silently, swung his gun to his shoulder, and began another slow parade of his self-appointed post. When he had stepped aside McKay looked again for the puzzling bole.

It was gone.

With a bound the captain was up and dashing toward the tree, drawing his pistol as he ran. But within three strides he went down. A tough vine, unnoticed on the ground, looped snakily around one ankle and threw him hard. His gun flew from his hand. As he fell a tiny whispering sound flitted past, followed by a small blow somewhere behind him. Ensued a gruff grunt from Tim and the swift clatter of a breech bolt.

Raging, McKay kicked his foot loose and heaved himself up. Empty handed, he continued his rush for the tree. But when he reached it he found nothing behind it. If anything had been there it now was gone, and the vacant shadows beyond were as inscrutable as ever.

Feet padded behind him and Tim and Knowlton halted on either side. A moment of silent searching, and Tim broke into reproach.

“Cap, don’t never do that again! If ye take a tumble in my line o’ fire, for the love o’ Mike stay down till I shoot! I come so near drillin’ ye when ye hopped up that I’m sweatin’ blood right now.”

In truth, the veteran was pale around the mouth and his broad face was beaded with cold drops.